


Voice of America

by Happy9450



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: F/M, Lilacmermaid's November Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2015-11-30
Packaged: 2018-05-04 03:56:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5319500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Happy9450/pseuds/Happy9450
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mac and Molly talk about the night they met.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Voice of America

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lilacmermaid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilacmermaid/gifts).



“Hey, Mac,” Molly said as she pushed open the door of MacKenzie McHale McAvoy’s hospital room. Then, seeing the dark haired man in the white coat engaged in conversation with her friend, she hastily added, “oh, sorry. I didn't know anyone else was in here. I can come back.”

“No. Please, Molly,” MacKenzie responded beaming a wide smile in her direction, “come on in. Meet Dr. Shivitz. Molly was Army too,” Mac said, directing the information at the doctor. “She was in Iraq . . . with one of the units in which I was embedded . . . the one I was with the longest. She’s now FBI.”

“Well, that’s impressive. Special Agent Molly . . . .” He was young, in his mid-thirties, and handsome in a dark, scholarly, Jewish way. His features were finely chiseled, delicate and serious, but there was a twinkle in his ernest, chocolate brown eyes that made Molly think of gold flecks in a delectable confection.

“Levy,” she said after only a moment’s too much hesitation.

“Dan Shivitz,” he introduced himself, holding out a hand for Molly to shake. 

“You’re Mac’s Doctor,” Molly said, more as verification than question. Taking his hand, she noticed that Shivitz’s grip was firm and forthright. “You delivered Charlotte.”

“Yes.” He smiled a sweet little smile at the mention of MacKenzie’s fourteen-hour-old daughter. “One of them. . . Mac’s doctors, that is.” He looked at MacKenzie with something . . . affection, Molly decided . . . plainly displayed on his face, and then said something about needing to get on with the day and returning to see her at dinnertime. “It was nice meeting you,” he directed to Molly, before striding purposefully to the door, opening it and vanishing.

“What is this place?” Molly asked looking around at the room décor. Mac sat up on one side of a king sized bed, resting on a stack of puffy down pillows. The sheets were not hospital white, but rather a pale blue. There was a large flat screen TV on the opposite wall, a wall covered in floral wallpaper. A sofa and two chairs were arranged in a conversation area at the other end of the room. On one side of the room, a door led to a private bath that contained both a shower and a soaking tub. “It looks like an upscale Holiday Inn.”

“It's a birthing suite . . . or delivery suite . . . I don't remember which one they said,” Mac responded. “It's a bit pretentious, but the bed’s nice. Billy was able to cuddle up next to me for a lot of the early hours of labor, which was very comforting, and he'll be able to sleep here tonight. And, Dan’s coming back with food for Billy and me later.”

Molly turned her attention to MacKenzie. “Yes, Dan. Quite attentive, isn't he. He’s uh . . . I want to say cute, but he’s not really cute. He's got an interesting looking face. And great eyes.” Mac only nodded. “And a wedding ring,” Molly sighed. “Why are all the good ones always taken?” Mac shrugged. “But, speaking of faces . . . You’re looking great!” Molly said fervently, which drew something of a belly laugh from Mac.

“Really? And just what appeals to you most,” Mac asked, with a chuckle, “is it the puffy chipmunk-cheeks look?” She blew air into her cheeks in an exaggerated parody of the slight facial edema that is common postpartum. “Or the burst blood capillaries in my left eye?”

“It’s . . . its’s the whole thing, I guess. You just look great . . . happy . . . content in a way that I'm not sure I ever expected to see.”

Yeah,” Mac sighed contentedly, “for someone who just pushed something the approximate size and weight of a bowling ball out of my body, I can't complain.”

“I saw your bowling ball on the way in here. She’s gorgeous, Mac.”

“I think so, but I could be just the tiniest bit prejudiced in her favor. You stopped by the nursery?

“No. Will’s got her. They’re by the nurses station entertaining everyone. You’d better hope that no one goes into cardiac arrest around here ‘cause the entire nursing staff is busy ogling your husband and daughter.” Mac laughed again and shook her head fondly. 

“By the way,” Molly continued, “who’s the Nightbird?”

“The Nightbird! Where’d you hear that? The Nightbird’s Will’s disc jockey persona. He started it years ago when he got his first iPod. And then, before we got back together, I'd sometimes call Will when . . . I couldn't sleep . . . you know . . . when stuff from the past would come up . . . .” 

“Yeah,” Molly replied ruefully.

“I'd talk to the Nightbird and he'd play music for me through the phone until I fell asleep,” Mac concluded.

“This happened a lot?” Molly asked sounding concerned.

“Some,” Mac answered a trifle defensively.

Molly shook her head. “I won't even ask why he didn't just go the fuck over to your place, take you in his arms and drive all of those night terrors out of your head.”

“Things between us were a bit . . . strained . . . for a while,” Mac replied primly, “as you well know.” Then her tone changed to one of curiosity. “So, what was he saying about the Nightbird?”

“It seems that the Nightbird’s gotten himself a sidekick called Littlebird and they are going to play songs together for ‘Mummy.’” Molly smiled fondly at a vision in her head. “I just love the way he said, ‘mummy.’ Will McAvoy, once voted New York’s most eligible bachelor, holding an infant just as naturally as you please, and calling you, mummy. It's a sight! And talk about happy. He’s radiant. Literally, Mac. He looks at that little girl and he glows . . . .”

Suddenly, Molly stopped talking, her attention caught by the song coming from the small speaker and iPod on the table beside Mac’s bed.

“I heard you on the radio  
Some other time  
From some forgotten studio  
Way down the line  
So long, so long I've waited now  
To hear you again  
That song, that song will still remain  
Become an old friend  
And now, the tears are in my eyes  
The sound you can't disguise  
The truth comes back from lies  
And all I want to hear”

“That song, Mac,” she said excitedly. “That’s the song that you were playing on an iPod or your computer the night I met you. Who is that?”

“It's an eighties band called, Asia. The drummer, Karl Palmer, is one of Will’s favorite musicians. Palmer and Peart. According to Will, no one drums like Palmer and Peart.”

“Who?”

“Karl Palmer and Neil Peart. Rush? Emerson, Lake and Palmer? No?”

“Yeah, sort of. Rush, anyway.”

“Well, never mind. What did you mean that I was playing this song when we met? We met at night? I thought it was daytime. We met . . . . Gee, I don't really remember. When did we meet?”

Molly laughed. “It doesn't surprise me that you’ve drawn a blank. You were way beyond lit that night, Mac.” MacKenzie continued to look quizzically at her friend, so Molly kept on talking. “As I recall, you went off with some of the guys who promised to introduce you to the finer points of a bong constructed from government issue components.”

“Oh, God,” Mac moaned softly, as bits and fragments of a memory came to her. “June.”

“Yeah, it was summer. Of course, it was always fucking summer in Iraq . . . but I guess it could have been June. So, you remember something, uh? Well, considering the shape you were in, that's a bit of a miracle.”

“Voice of America, ooh, America  
Voice of America, ooh, America”

“I remember going off to smoke weed with the guys one night. That wasn't really my thing, if you recall. And I remember the hangover I had the next day. But, frankly, Moll, I really don't remember seeing you that night.”

“And then you came in stereo  
Calling to me  
And so I watch the videos  
Across the T.V.  
That sound, still ringing in my ears  
From a decade ago  
Around, around my head, the sound from my radio  
I thought, that after all these years  
The tears, the growing fears  
That I would never hear  
Never again”

Mac hit the repeat button, feeling that listening to the song again would help her remember the night. She knew the date. It had been the 8th of June, 2008. 

“Voice of America, ooh, America  
Voice of America, ooh, America”

She remembered running . . . running from herself, running from her memories . . . running into a haze of marijuana smoke, giggling, dancing . . . anything not to feel. She'd returned to her tent . . . alone. Jim wasn't there that night, she remembered now. He was off with part of the unit, scouting something. Somehow in her addled state she had turned on the iPod.

“Voice of America, ooh, America  
Voice of America, ooh, America”

And then, she'd gone looking on the Internet . . . looking for him. It was one of the rare nights that the signal was strong enough to stream video. She'd looked on YouTube . . . searched for Will McAvoy. There had been dozens and dozens of clips. His face . . . his voice . . . .

“Voice of America, ooh, America  
Voice of America, ooh, America”

It had ripped her open. All of the desolation, loss and emptiness had welled up and overwhelmed her. She'd grabbed a bottle of Scotch that she and Jim kept hidden and tried to drown the pain.

Mac closed her eyes as the memories came flooding back. “What happened, Molly? When you came into my tent?” She sat quietly while Molly described finding her stoned, drunk and sobbing, with the song playing in an endless loop on her iPod and a YouTube upload of a News Night segment frozen on her computer screen.

“I tried to get you settled, get you to sleep,” Molly continued. “You had the sheets and blanket on your cot twisted up in knots, along with some brown paper, string and a white piece of cloth. I tried to straighten things out a bit, but you fought me. You kept telling me that everything was fine and I should leave you alone. There was also a little wood box in the bed with you. I remember because you practically ripped my arm off when I tried to move it away.”

“Jesus, Molly, I'm sorry. Did I hurt you?”

“Na, I’m tough. You know that Mac.” Molly turned her head slightly to the side and studied her friend. “I've always wondered, though, what was in the box. I figure now that it must have had something to do with Will.”

“Well,” Mac chuckled in a self-deprecating way, “with me, that's a pretty safe surmise.” MacKenzie paused, thinking. “I'll make a deal. I'll tell you what was in the box if you tell me why you were in my tent that night.”

Molly looked like it was the last thing that she was expecting. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“I mean, we didn't know each other, you said so yourself. So what made you come to my tent that night?”

Molly sighed and decided that it was six years ago and her promise to keep silent about Jim’s request couldn't still matter to him. “Jim asked me to check on you,” she said, unable to keep the slight note of sheepishness out of her voice.

It was the answer that Mac had expected when she’d remembered a few minutes before that Molly had become Jim’s friend first. “And he made you promise not to tell me that he'd asked you.”

“Yes. How'd you guess?”

“A lucky shot in the dark.”

“I think he was a little in love with you back then.” Molly smiled. “There were a couple of the younger women in the unit who were desperately trying to attract his attention, but he only had eyes for you.”

“Hardly.” Mac too smiled at the memory of the young, green associate producer she had plucked up in Atlanta and dragged half way around the world. 

“Well, he sure worried about you.”

“Yes,” Mac agreed, sighing, “I gave him some reason to, I suppose.” Taking a deep breath, she resolved to begin. “Come here.” Mac gestured for Molly to sit down on the bed. “Okay. So, the paper and string and the white cloth that you saw had all been wrapped around the little box. The cloth was . . . is, actually . . . a tallit . . . a small one, made for a boy’s bar mitzvah . . . .”

Quizzical surprise played over Molly’s face. “Where did you get a tallit . . . how do you even know that word, Mac?”

“It was a gift from Danny . . . Dan Shivitz . . . .”

“Dan Shivitz, the doe-eyed OB-GYN? You knew him back then . . . before you were in Iraq?”

Mac nodded. “I met him about a year before the night you found me drunk and stoned in my tent. He was military . . . a doctor in Kabul, Afghanistan.”

“Wait. You were in Afghanistan?”

Mac nodded again. “In June and July of ’07. CNN sent me. I did a piece on how our guys were helping the people of Kabul build a better life.” Molly couldn't tell if Mac was being sarcastic or serious and didn't ask. “I met Dan there.”

“And he was passing out tallitot?”

Mac chuckled softly, “No.” Then she looked sad, a look of sadness so profound that it took Molly Levy back to the Middle East. 

“Hey, Mac,” Molly said hastily. “I'm sorry. We don't have to talk about this. I don't want to rain on your parade . . . today of all days.”

“No. It's fine. Today of all days,” Mac grinned, “my parade is pretty much precipitation proof. The tallit,” she continued, “Danny . . . he used it for a . . . shroud. Then he gave it to me.” This time Molly didn't speak, so MacKenzie continued. “The box . . . the little wooden box that you saw . . .” Mac paused, swallowing hard. Molly seemed frozen, as if she sensed that something bad was coming. Mac reached for her hand. Molly’s fingers were cold. “The box has ashes in it, Moll . . . a baby's ashes . . . my baby’s ashes.”

MacKenzie managed to tell her friend most of the story before the door of her room opened and Will entered, holding a sleeping Charlotte in the crook of his left arm. Mac looked up and although there were tears in her eyes, the sight of her husband carrying their daughter in exactly the same way that she’d seen him run with a football, put a grin on her face. Molly, however, wasn't doing nearly as well. Her make-up was streaked and smeared and her puffy red eyes were surrounded by blotchy skin. Will stared at her as she looked back at him as if seeing him for the first time in her life.

“What’s going on in here?” Will asked, obviously concerned.

“Molly and I were reminiscing, and she remembered a night, the night we first met actually, when . . . well, it was June . . . the 8th . . . 2008 . . . .” Will winced. “I was pretty much of a mess . . . when she found me in my tent, I had the box on my cot . . . I was stoned and drunk and I wouldn't let her touch it. She’s been wondering all of these years what was in it . . .” Mac shrugged. “So she asked . . . .”

Irrational as he knew it to be, Will couldn't help himself. He felt anger, hot and white, well up in his belly. He bounded the rest of the way into the room and loomed over Molly. “And you thought this would be a good fucking time to bring it up . . . .” The words hissed out venomously. Mac saw her friend recoil.

“Billy!” Mac heard herself almost shriek, and willed herself to regain some modicum of calm. “Stop! That’s uncalled for and unfair. Molly didn't know . . . couldn't have known what she was asking.” Mac paused, forcing Will to turn from Molly to her. “And, it's alright. In fact, it's a great fucking time to bring it up.” Mac raised a hand in a gesture that Molly guessed Will recognized because he bent down to his wife. She put both of her hands on the sides of his face, and looked him in the eyes. “I'm fine. Really. Just fine.” She kissed him gently and lovingly on the lips. “Actually, I'm better than fine. And, you owe Molly an apology.”

“Yes. Yes, I do.” Straightening up, he turned to Molly. “I'm sorry. That was way out of line.”

“No . . . it's . . . I'm . . . .” 

Will waived her off, and reached into his pocket. He handed Molly a linen handkerchief, which she took and began trying to salvage something of her face. As he turned back to MacKenzie, Charlotte began to stir. They all watched as her little rosebud mouth moved rapidly and she wiggled in her burrito-wrap blanket. Mac gestured toward Will, and he handed their daughter to his wife.

“Smell,” Mac explained to Molly. “When Will leaned down, I think she smelled me . . . my boobs . . . they apparently give off the scent of lunch.” Mac shifted the baby, who had begun to make a high-pitched mewling sound, unbuttoned the top of her gown and removed a swollen breast. The gesture was so unselfconscious and natural, it made Molly smile. In Iraq, Mac had always been a bit prudish about gang showers and community nudity. This had struck Molly as bizarre since if she'd had MacKenzie McHale’s body, she'd have walked naked in the streets.

“It's right here, Charlie,” Mac cooed. “Mummy’s got lunch right here.”

Now, Molly watched as Mac moved her breast so that the rosy-brown nipple brushed lightly across her daughter’s lips. The tiny blue eyes opened at the same time as the baby’s mouth, and Charlie turned her head into her mother’s breast. The mewling sound grew more urgent. Mac shifted again to reposition her nipple and this time, Charlie caught it in her mouth and closed her lips around it. Mac made a slight whooshing sound, as the air escaped from her lungs, and then looked up with shining eyes at Will, who was bending over them protectively. The baby began to suckle noisily. The look of pure accomplishment on MacKenzie’s face made Molly Levy burst out laughing. 

"So long, so long I've waited now  
To hear you again  
That song, that song will still remain  
Become an old friend"

Molly kissed Mac on the forehead, hugged Will and left the room with a promise to visit Mac and Charlie at their apartment in the next few days. Will climbed onto the bed and drew Mac against him, as she shifted Charlotte to her other breast.

“You’re really getting good at that,” Will said trying to banish from consciousness his recollection of her description of attempting to nurse their first child during the few brief moments of his life.

"We're a couple of naturals, your daughter and I.”

“Yes. Yes, you are,” he replied kissing the back of her neck.

“Are you going to do the show tonight?”

“No. I thought I'd give it another day, maybe two. Tomorrow will be your first day home. I don't want to leave you . . . you two . . . alone. I know the baby nurse will be there, but . . . . Sloan and Elliott are fine with carrying both News Night and Right Now.”

“Okay . . . .” Mac struggled to sit up and twist around to see Will’s face. “Pruit . . . .”

“Screw Pruit . . . .”

“Not on your life!”

Will chuckled. “I'll make it up to Pruit. I'll show baby pictures. The ratings will go through the roof. Besides, the audience won't forget me in three days.”

“No. That’s for sure.” Mac settled back against him with a contented sigh.

“Voice of America, ooh, America  
Voice of America, ooh, America”


End file.
